Eternal Kiss of Darkness

Chapter 32

Mencheres sat inside the circle, the knife still in his chest, the symbols finished around him, and the cup still in his hand. All of that was the same, yet he knew he was not on the same plane of existence anymore. The lack of pain was his first indicator. The utter void around the circle, absent of everything except piercing darkness, was the next.

Then the circle was pierced when a slim boat floated through. A tall figure stood at the helm, with the body and face of a man, yet the horns of a ram curled out from his head. Mencheres bowed as much as the knife protruding from his chest would allow.

“Ferryman,” he said. “Lord of Duat.”

When Mencheres straightened, Aken reached out and plucked the knife from his chest as if it were a bloom off the ground. The huge horns neared Mencheres’s head as Aken then bent to lick the blade. All the while, Aken’s yellow eyes burned into his.

“You have paid your blood coin to summon me, Cainenite. What do you seek?”

It had been thousands of years since Mencheres had been referred to as a Cainenite, but the god of the underworld probably wasn’t familiar with how that word had been replaced with the more current one: “vampire.” After all, thousands of years were a mere pittance of time to the gods.

Mencheres bowed again. “I seek another Cainenite named Kira. She rose from my blood and her essence remains in me still. Use my blood to find her, and tell me where she is.”

“Give me your name,” the ferryman commanded.

Names held power. Aken would bind their agreement with his. “Menkaure,” he replied, using the one he’d been born with.

The ferryman gave him a toothless grin that looked more like the open maw of the grave. Again, he licked the knife that still had some of Mencheres’s blood coated on it.

“She is far from here,” Aken stated. That smile widened. “It will take time to reach her.”

The sun had been high in the sky when he began this ritual, but he still might not have enough time. If Radje and Kira were located on opposite sides of the world, he would not have time to reach them both. Mencheres didn’t trust anyone else to secure Kira, either. No doubt Radje left instructions for the guards to kill her at once if there was an attack.

“Tell me where she is,” he said.

The ferryman touched Mencheres’s forehead. Images of a sprawling, decrepit city consisting of crumbling temples and monuments bordered by a vast jungle exploded in Mencheres’s mind, combined with flashes of Kira manacled to a wall and guards milling in and around a large temple surrounded by pillars. His jaw tightened. He recognized those ruins. Kira was in Yucatán, Mexico, somewhere inside the Temple of the Warriors in the ancient Mayan city complex of Chichén Itzá. And he was in Chicago, over a thousand miles away, with an appointment to meet Radje in Atlanta at midnight or he’d order Kira’s death.

Aken dropped his fingers from Mencheres’s head and set the silver knife down in front of him. “Once summoned, my boat does not return to Duat empty. Either spill a worthy surrogate’s blood on this blade before dawn, or I come for you.”

“Agreed,” Mencheres rasped.

Then the ferryman steered his boat out of the circle and disappeared into the blackness of the River of the Dead. As soon as he was gone, the circle dissolved, flinging Mencheres back in his own time. Vlad’s amazed expression was the first thing he noticed, his friend’s face bent close to his.

“I don’t believe it, you’re not dead.”

Vlad grasped Mencheres’s arms and pulled him to his feet. For a moment, Mencheres actually felt dizzy as the effect of traversing between two worlds clung to him. But then his mind cleared enough for him to notice that the sun was not quite as painfully bright as before.

“How long was I away?” he demanded.

“After those things tore half your flesh from you, you lay as if dead for over an hour,” Vlad said, muttering, “If I never see any creatures raised from black magic again, it will be too soon.”

Mencheres grasped Vlad’s arms. “I need a plane. Now.”

K ira just finished pulling her final foot free from the ankle clamp when she heard someone coming. If vampires could sweat, she’d be covered in it. Her hands might have hurt when she pulled them free, but crushing her feet had been almost more than she could bear. It took all her will not to thrash around screaming at the top of her lungs from the pain. Freeing her feet took far longer, too. Especially adding in all the times the guards would wander in and she’d have to abruptly fake sleep while clutching the wrist irons and hoping the guards didn’t look closely at them.

She tensed in a moment of indecision, the pain still radiating up her leg as her foot healed. Should she pretend to still be shackled and hope the guard didn’t look at her irons closely—or at all? But then Kira heard the heartbeat accompanying those footsteps. Whoever was coming into the room was human.

She braced herself to let loose all the power she had in her gaze to shut the person up if Radje had human as well as vampire guards here, but then her jaw dropped when she saw who it was that edged inside. Only the knowledge that she’d give herself away kept Kira from gasping out her name.

Jennifer Jackson, the young girl Flare had forced into stripping. The same girl who’d gone missing from the club after Radje torched it and murdered those people.

Jennifer’s eyes were wide as she crept into the room. No lights, she probably couldn’t see much. Kira was torn. If the guards came looking for Jennifer, they’d find that Kira had slipped her irons. If she said anything to get Jennifer to leave, they’d hear that, too. And she had another problem. Jennifer’s pulse was so tantalizingly near, her heartbeat sounding like nothing as much as the dinner bell. More pain twisted in her gut, and her fangs sprang from her gums. Only a few feet separated Kira from more blood than she could even begin to drink.

Jennifer gasped, her face lit in a pale green glow. Kira sprang soundlessly across the room, covering Jennifer’s mouth. The contact with her warm, pulsating flesh was almost her undoing. An avalanche of need slammed through her, coating Kira like burning tar. She had to drink from Jennifer, but only a little. She’d stop before she took too much . . .

You’ll kill her.

Her instincts shouted a clear warning that even her hunger-addled mind couldn’t deny. She stared at Jennifer, forcing her attention away from that intoxicatingly pounding pulse only a few inches from her mouth, trying to listen for the guards over the sound of Jennifer’s racing heart. She was too far gone to trust taking even a drop. If she started to feed, she wouldn’t stop until Jennifer was dead.

You need the strength to get away, her hunger tempted her. Taking one life is worth all the others you’ll save later if you can just return to Mencheres. The guards will probably kill Jennifer anyway . . .

Kira shook her head, forcing that hunger down with a strength that no normal new vampire would have. She would not murder an innocent girl, even if it did mean a better chance to get away. Radje treated life so dismissively. She wouldn’t. Jennifer might die anyway, but it wouldn’t be by her hand. Not while she still had an ounce of control left in her.

Kira put her finger to her lips in a gesture for silence, then slowly removed her hand from Jennifer’s mouth. The sooner she wasn’t touching her, the easier it would be not to sink her fangs into Jennifer’s closest vein.

Jennifer didn’t speak, but tears made her eyes shiny. She grabbed her hand when Kira tried to set her away, holding on with a grip that was surprisingly strong.

Take me with you, Jennifer mouthed.

Kira shook her head. Finding a way to slip past the guards would be hard enough alone. Trying to do that with a slower, louder, weaker human? She’d never make it.

Jennifer glanced back at the open doorway that led to the room where the guards were, then glanced back at Kira again.

I know a way out, Jennifer mouthed.

She wavered. Jennifer could be telling the truth. If she’d been here since the night of the club fire, she might be very familiar with the temple’s layout or the expansive ruins beyond it. Kira had only gotten a brief look at the imposing temple, with its hundreds of pillars, stone warriors, and steep steps before Radje’s guards hustled her into a pyramid hidden inside the crumbling pyramid. That had been a maze of corridors, inner vaults, and partially crumpled rooms that would be very difficult to navigate without alerting the guards to her escape.

But Jennifer could also be lying out of fear of being left behind. Kira couldn’t blame her for that, but she couldn’t risk taking Jennifer, either. She would still have a much better chance alone, even if Jennifer was telling the truth.

She shook her head no again, more emphatically.

The tears that had been welling in Jennifer’s eyes spilled down her cheeks. Please, she mouthed, despair and desperation growing on her features.

Mack’s voice rang in Kira’s mind, just as strong and clear as it had been when he was alive. Save one life. She couldn’t do anything to help the humans in the other room with the guards, but here was one person she might be able to save if she tried.

Kira grabbed Jennifer. No way would they make it if she limited herself to Jennifer’s human speed; she’d have to carry her. Silently, she begged for the strength to do this without giving in to that overwhelming urge to feed. All her hunger saw was a bundle of juicy arteries in her arms, even if her mind recognized a terrified, traumatized girl who needed help.

Show me, Kira mouthed.

Jennifer pointed, and Kira darted off to the opposite side of the room, where Jennifer had snuck in from.

M encheres drummed one finger on the armrest inside the Falcon 20 jet. It was the only visible sign of the tension boiling inside of him. It had been four hours since Aken told of Kira’s location, and less than three of those hours had been spent flying. It had taken an hour alone to get to the nearest private jet charter company in Chicago and compel the humans into taking Vlad and Mencheres on an unscheduled flight immediately, but then more precious minutes ticked away while fueling and preparing the aircraft.

Then he couldn’t force the pilots into pushing the plane to its maximum speed because the plane could only travel fifteen hundred miles before refueling—almost the exact distance from Chicago to the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, where the Chichén Itzá ruins were. If the plane burned more fuel going faster than its cruising speed of almost five hundred miles an hour, they would run out of fuel before reaching their destination.

But now, it was time to notify others where Kira was, just in case he failed to retrieve her in time.

“I need your phone,” Mencheres said to Vlad.

He handed it over. Mencheres dialed Bones first, looking out the small window at the dark expanse of water far beneath them. The Gulf of Mexico. They were less than an hour away from Chichén Itzá.

“Tepesh,” Bones answered his phone, not bothering to say hello. “Do you know where Mencheres is?”

“I am here,” Mencheres replied calmly, even though he felt anything but calm.

“Bloody hell,” Bones breathed. “When I last spoke to you, I thought—”

“I thought so as well,” he interrupted with a hint of wryness. “But it appears I was not meant for that particular fate.” His darkness might still find him, but not in the form of being trapped as one of the Devourer’s akhs because he’d failed to complete the ritual.

“Where are you?”

“In a plane on my way to Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula. That is where Radje has Kira. I need you to come here. If I am successful in freeing her, someone will still need to force one of her guards to confirm to Radje that all is well when I meet with him later.”

“You need him for that?” Vlad looked mildly affronted. “I’m twice as old and twice as capable.”

“Call Veritas and tell her where Kira is,” Mencheres continued, not addressing Vlad’s comment. He and Bones had always been at odds with each other, no doubt due to their similar natures. “Tell her to come but not to inform any other Guardians. I can’t risk word getting to Radje.”

“You’re still trying to keep me on the good side of the Guardians in case you don’t come back from this,” Bones said in rasping tones.

“Yes,” Mencheres replied shortly. “Our line must be protected, no matter what.”

“Grandsire, I . . .” Bones stopped, his voice breaking off.

Mencheres smiled slightly. Bones might call him grandsire because he’d made the vampire who later turned Bones, but Mencheres knew he wasn’t the only one who felt that their relationship was more father and son.

“It doesn’t need to be said. I know.”

Then he hung up, meeting Vlad’s sardonic copper green gaze.

“Why you and Cat care so much for that street peasant, I will never know.”

“Because we see deeper into him than you bother to look,” Mencheres replied. “You were worse at his age. I remember; I was there.”

“If you meant to send for Veritas and Bones, why didn’t you call them in time to arrive with us?” Vlad asked, switching the subject.

Mencheres looked out the window again. “Veritas will be more interested in securing proof against Radje than in saving Kira’s life. And now Bones and Cat will have the opportunity to mend fences with her by passing this on personally. Veritas is a valuable ally, but they have some history with her to overcome.”

“You’ll need to keep several guards alive. You don’t know which one of them Radje is supposed to call later.”

Mencheres gave him a measured look. “That’s why I needed more than just you here once I leave to meet Radje—because I can’t take Kira with me.”